Recently in social media, there has been a lot of talk about the crime rate increasing in Naperville, during the first four months of this year, compared to the first four months of last year. Numbers support the talk of a higher crime rate in seven of eight categories including, arson, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, murder (1 in 2017, none in 2016), robbery, and sexual assault. The only category of crime decreasing was theft; 371 in the first four months of 2017 versus 379 in 2016 equaling 2% decrease.

Naperville Police Chief Robert Marshall said police “typically look at three to five years of data,” rather than ” a four month snapshot.” However, from a resident’s point of view, what’s going on during the last four months is of more concern that what happened three, four or five years ago.

Marshall went on to say that Naperville has a lower rate of crime compared to other suburbs. Rather than Marshall comparing Naperville to the lowest common-denominator suburbs , he should be focusing on suburbs doing a better job of fighting crime, and acknowledge that Naperville needs to do a better job in fighting crime. There is no shame is saying Naperville needs improvement in combating crime.

Unfortunately Marshall is talking more like a politician, than a law enforcement officer. By doing so, it’s an insult to the residents of Naperville, and the rank and file in the Naperville Police Department, most all of whom know rhetoric from reality.

Watchdog has the utmost respect for Marshall’s long career as a law enforcement officer. Putting the uniform and the badge on, and putting his life and his safety on the line on a daily basis, for as long as he did, so the rest of us could live in a safer environment, deserves nothing less than total respect and appreciation for his service, and I for one salute and say ‘thank you’ for his service.

The residents of Naperville need Chief Marshall to aspire to a higher benchmark, by speaking as a police officer rather than as a politician, and focus on raising Naperville to the level of other suburbs and cities of comparable size throughout the country that have better safety metrics than Naperville.

9 Responses to “Crime Escalates In Naperville”

Perhaps being paid a police pension plus police chief’s salary at the same time takes the cutting edge off of keeping ones job based on performance? When leadership either political or appointed bureaucrats bastardize system meant to reasonable reward service they do crime to the society and the tax payer. They are no better then the criminals they pursue.

The practice of double dipping has been going on for decades in this and other state as well as the federal government. It was done by Marshal’s predecessors as well as the predecessors of other members of city staff. This is less an indicator of a crime then of a shift in public perception and the reason the state legislature is working on passing a law to prevent it in the future.

A thousand wrongs costing we state and city tax payers millions if not billions doesn’t excuse one more of them. Our last mayor held four or more separate positions simultaneously. Only crooks and morons would justify these practices as moral. ethical, honest and justified.

I did not state my personal position on this issue, just that it is common and has been socially acceptable for decades. I know of several people in the private section that are double dippers ( I worked construction with a guy that was a triple dipper) yet no one calls them criminals for doing it and there is no effort being made to stop it. The fact that it was common place for so long in both the private and public sectors demonstrates the fact that it has been considered moral, ethical and honest behavior for decades and only the recent shift in perception towards public sector workers engaging in this activity has lead to claims that it is someway wrong or inappropriate to do. And should not be permitted. This is not a justification just a simple statement of facts.

There are no private sector jobs where you can retire at 50 get an immediate pension then take a second government job paying full salary and simultaneously collect said pension. Even in SS if you retire early and have a second job earnings you have a dollar for dollar deduct up to a certain ridiculous age. Excusing bad behavior (criminal behavior) is not acceptable regardless of past practice made allowed by RICO type activity by the people committing it.

Double dipping has nothing to do with age. There are few people that can start drawing a pension at age 50 and most of those are because they were grandfather, so when the requirements changed they do not apply to them. And yes there are private sector jobs were people can be working a second job, building a second pension, while drawing a pension from their first job.

I grow up around commercial construction so I am most familiar with construction workers that double dip. These are usually people that started in the trade right out of high school and could secure there union pension once they reach 20 years on the job (so by age 38). Most of these people worked their way up through the various supervisory and management levels of construction until they became members of company management and were no longer working on job sites. As company employees they began building a second pension and for those grandfathered in, at age 55, started drawing a union pension, while still working.

Again, double dipping is not something only public sector workers do, though it is more common for people that started out young in a union job (private/public) or the military.

I think we are all aware of the increasing crime problems in our city. We are also aware that some these same problems are being experienced in other suburbs and are a product of the growing criminal activity in the City of Chicago. The same transportation system that makes it practice to live in the suburbs and work in Chicago also makes it practice for Chicago criminals to commit crimes in the suburbs, something they have only recently begun to realize. It is situations like these that make it critical for the State to provide additional resource to cities like Chicago for the greater good of all of us.

Other crime problems in Naperville are due to less ordinances governing rental properties. Many of our neighbor’s have adopted ordinances requiring compliance to accepted standards that make renting to someone with a criminal history difficult to impossible. Naperville property owners/managers strongly lobbied the city council to only adopt these standards as a good practice not legal requirement. We saw how well this worked in downtown Naperville. It only took one bar operator in downtown not wishing to comply with these good practices to cause lots of problems, which lead city council to make these standards of practice a legal requirement. We are seeing criminal problems at only a couple of complexes that are not adhering to these property management standards of practice. It maybe time to make these practices a legal requirement as well to solve this growing problem.

We are not serious about fighting crime ., We only pacify the squeaky wheels . Double dipping is the norm in Illinois and more power to the people who can get away with it . Not too many taxpayers complain about it .

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